BEAUTY, HOW ACQUIRED. 179 



many structures have now no very close and direct relation 

 to present habits of life. Thus, we can hardly believe that 

 the webbed feet of the upland goose, or of the frigate-bird, 

 are of special use to these birds ; we cannot believe that the 

 similar bones in the arm of the monkey, in the fore leg of the 

 horse, in the wing of the bat, and in the flipper of the seal, 

 are of special use to these animals. We may safely attribute 

 these structures to inheritance. But webbed feet no doubt 

 were as useful to the progenitor of the upland goose and of 

 the frigate-bird, as they now are to the most aquatic of living 

 birds. So we may believe that the progenitor of the seal did 

 not possess a flipper, but a foot with five toes fitted for walk- 

 ing or grasping ; and we may further venture to believe that 

 the several bones in the limbs of the monkey, horse and bat, 

 were originally developed, on the principle of utility, prob- 

 ably through the reduction of more numerous bones in the 

 fin of some ancient fish-like progenitor of the whole class. 

 It is scarcely possible to decide how much allowance ought 

 to be made for such causes of change, as the definite action 

 of external conditions, so-called spontaneous variations, and 

 the complex laws of growth ; but with these important ex- 

 ceptions, we may conclude that the structure of every living 

 creature either now is, or was formerly, of some direct or 

 indirect use to its possessor. 



With respect to the belief that organic beings have been 

 created beautiful for the delight of man — a belief which it 

 has been pronounced is subversive of my whole theory — I 

 may first remark that the sense of beauty obviously depends 

 on the nature of the mind, irrespective of any real quality 

 in the admired object ; and that the idea of what is beautiful, 

 is not innate or unalterable. We see this, for instance, in 

 the men of different races admiring an entirely different 

 standard of beauty in their women. If beautiful objects had 

 been created solely for man's gratification, it ought to be 

 shown that before man appeared there was less beauty on the 

 face of the earth than since he came on the stage. Were 

 the beautiful volute and cone shells of the Eocene epoch, and 

 the gracefully sculptured ammonites of the Secondary period, 

 created that man might ages afterward admire them in his 

 cabinet ? Few objects are more beautiful than the minute 

 siliceous oases of the diatomacese : were these created that 

 they might be examined and admired under the higher 

 powers of the microscope ? The beauty in this latter case, 

 and in many others, is apparently wholly due to symmetry 



